Sunday, March 28, 2010

Friday, March 26, 2010

This morning when I checked my e-mail, I got a very pleasant surprise from Facebook.

Then the fanboy in me takes over. WOW. Joe Kubert added me on Facebook! Is that a Facebook Fan site? Is that someone else running Joe Kubert's Facebook? I dunno. I'm just going to take it in... Joe Kubert added me on Facebook!!!

Many years ago in my early inking days, I've meet Joe Kubert at a local comic convention. It was my first and only time I've meet him. This was around the time one of his books, Fax from Sarajevo, was released and I believe he was touring. I was still inking for independent comics and haven't stepped foot with any of the bigger publishers yet. I decided to ask him if he would be so kind to give me a critique. After all, he is the founder of the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. Of all people, he would know exactly what he was talking about. Who better to ask for a critique? I patiently waited until he finished all his signatures and sketches for people and built up enough courage to ask. "Would you mind taking a look at my portfolio and giving me a critique?" Sure, he said. Joe took a look at all the pages in my portfolio, flipped back to a few pages, looked back up at me with a huge engaging smile and said (and I'll never forget this compliment), "You're one of those Inkers I would like to kill." I was confused and asked, "What? What do you mean?" Then he explains... "You're one of those inkers who are so good that you can take inking jobs away from me. I don't see anything wrong with your inks." Then we chatted a bit about inking and when I left, he wished me luck. Joe Kubert is going to be a guest at the same convention, Wonder Con, where I first meet him. Speaking of which, I'll be attending that same convention, Wonder Con.

I'm looking forward to meeting Joe Kubert again. If I see him, I'm going to ask if he remembers me and the critique he gave me. From the first time we've meet, I think he'll be happy to know that I'm doing better with the inking. It would be great to see him again. This time, I won't have butterflies or the need to build up courage to meet him... after all, we're Facebook friends now. :)

Thursday, March 25, 2010

"He never gives up. He's always there, Fighting for freedom over land and air. GI Joe. A real American hero. GI Joe is there. Geee- Eyeee-Joeee!

Okay, enough of the singing. Here's something I worked on sometime last year that's finally out. GI Joe Origins #13 published by IDW (Idea and Design Works). I've inked the whole issue over S.L. Gallant's pencils. There's two different covers for this issues and below are the comp copies I got.

All of this was inked on Blue Lines. The guys over at IDW were great to work with. They gave me a lot of time to work on this issue.

Funny thing on how I got this project. One day, I was at a comic book store looking to buy some comics. There's this local comic book store that always over stocks their shelves and when people simply walk near them, comics just leaps forward and falls off the shelves. Just like a domino effect, one at a time, PLOP... PLOP... PLOP.

Anyway, while I was looking for comics, books next to me were taking a dive off the shelves as if possessed by spirits. As a normal customer would, I go there, pick it up and put it back on the shelves. While I was picking them back up, more comics were falling on top of me. PLOP... PLOP... PLOP. What the hell! And one of those comics was GI Joe Snake Eyes, which the cover also caught my eye. Probably because it fell on my head and there was a cool drawing of Snake Eyes on top of the Arashikage logo printed in bright red foil (To see what I'm taking about, click here). I bought that issue, opened up the bag and immediately notice an editor friend. I contacted him about the book and how cool it was and the very same week, I got this project.

Here are a couple of pages from this issue. It stars one of the GI Joe characters, Ripcord.

I didn't see any links for this issue on the internet, so here's a quick overview of this issue so you know what it's about:

First appearance of RIPCORD! The latest candidate for G.I. JOE status may already be dead! Meet Wallace Weems, a soldier everybody calls RIPCORD. Lost in a forbidding jungle, Ripcord has one mission: SURVIVE! And if he doesn't outwit, outfight, and outlast the terrorists hunting him, thousands more might die!

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Here's a nice surprise. This come in the mail today. Superman Red Son Motion Comics DVD that I did some work in. Along with a nice letter thanking me for my contribution to the project. I knew DC Comics was doing motion comics for download. Didn't know there was an actual DVD that was released as well.

That paper in the back with all the DC Comic characters is just the back of the same letter. The neat thing about the letter is, if you hold it up and look at it through the light, Wonder Woman is holding the DC logo on top of her. The same logo that's in the front of the letter you see in the picture above. I get that same paper every now and then from DC, just thought it would be cool to show some of you guys.

Open it up and here's the DVD below. Nice Superman Red Son image on the DVD. Very coolHere's the back of the DVD box. I dig the way the credits are listed on the bottom. The format is the same as those credits you see in movie posters. I'm listed there right before the colorist.This is on sale now.

Friday, March 19, 2010

My daughter's first grade class was talking about what parents do for a living. She told everyone "My Daddy's an artist". She comes home and asked me to draw something for her to bring to class so she can show and tell. Apparently, I'm the only parent in the class that's an artist. I though to myself maybe I can just give her some comic book original art and she can bring that. Then she says, "Can you draw some Disney Princess for me? I like Disney Princess." I said okay. Then I walk around the house, gathering up all the Disney Princess items I can find... toys, clothing, lunch boxes, shoes, and everything else. As long as there's an image of a Disney Princess on it, I gathered them up for references. Then I pencilled and inked this on a 11x17 bristol board.

After the black and white drawing, I was going to call it quits. Then I thought about kids in the first grade. How often do they see Disney princess in just black and white line work. Unless of course, it's a coloring book. Then I decided to color it. I asked my daughter to let me borrow her color pencils. It was either that or crayons. I choose color pencils because it was less messy. She brings me back about 5 color pencils. Not much colors to choose from. But at least there's the primary colors so I can mix them to get other colors and add tones. Two hours later and here's the results.She took it to school and everybody loved it. Although I wasn't there, I've been told that when my daughter showed this in her class, everybody huddled around her to look. She said things like, "My daddy drew this! Be careful, don't bend it." Kids that age are cute when they're sharing.

Just another one of those moments where I'm proud to do something for my daughter to make her happy.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

A while back, I posted on how I inked up this cover of DOOM PATROL #8 before it was sent to the colorist. You can read that post by clicking here.

There's an exclusive DC Preview of this book, which will be on sale March 10. You can check that out by clicking here. Five preview pages. None of which I had any part of. The cover is the only portion I inked, which I was given credit on page 5 of the preview. Very cool.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Justiniano and I worked on a T-Shirt image recently. He drew up the whole image and I inked it on Blue Line print outs. With this image, there's no blacks to spot. It's all line work. Also, if you look very closely, I inked every character differently. The dog on the right has a thin outline, the dog on left is much thicker, the old man in the center was in between thickness, and the big dog on top had broken lines with a bunch of quill nib flicking thick to thin. The rest are as lot of cross hatching work. I'm not sure when this will be used. When I do, I'll blog it.

In other news, I have a DeviantArt site. I've actually had that account for two ways, but it wasn't until recently that I started uploading more of my work there.At DeviantArt there's also a Journal where I can write about whatever. So if you like to read more of my ramblings, check it out. Here's the link. Drop by and say HEY.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Here's an interesting topic. Arthur Adams. I've known Arthur way before I started working in the comic industry. He used to run this comic book store along with someone else in San Francisco called "Ogleos" where I would buy my weekly comics. I remember him working the cash register every so often and when he wasn't ringing me up, he would be drawing in the back room. At the time, I didn't know he was drawing back there. But every time I walked in, he would come out and say Hey. I got to know Arthur outside of comics. Went to Great America amusement park, his home, and saw each other outside of the comic shop.

Then one day at the store, a FedEx guy came to pick up a package. The FedEx guy said, "No drawings on the box this time?". Arthur said "Nope, maybe next time." I asked him, drawings of what? He told me he would doodle drawings on the packages he sends to Marvel. "MARVEL? What do you mean Marvel? Marvel Comics?" Then he explains how he worked for Marvel and draws for them.

I started asking Arthur about the comic book industry. Is it hard to get into? Can people make a living working the comic book industry? How do I even start? What do I need to do? He gave me answer to all my questions. Much later on down the line, I decided to get into comics as an Inker which I asked Arthur about that as well. Not only did he have answers for me, he also gave me photocopies of his pencil work so I can ink over. Using vellum over photocopies, I started practicing on how to ink.

When I was done, I would show these to Arthur and asked him what he thought of it. These were inked way before I worked in comics professionally. Even before my last batch of inking samples that got me work, which I blogged about. The images above and below were stuff that Arthur did for action figures. Anytime Arthur gave me photocopies, I would just ink it regardless of what it was. Didn't matter to me, I just wanted to practice inking. Looking at my inks now, everything looks so crude and rough. No life with the inks. Not a lot of people have seen these samples besides Arthur. Every time he critiqued my work, he would give me photocopies of some other current projects he worked on. Which I would ink up for more practice. I was very focused and driven on Inking. Arthur was always nice with his critiques. He told me what he like but never said what he didn't like. Instead, he would tellme how he would ink a certain area differently. Very kind, very cool.These two cover pieces were also inking samples I've done just for Arthur. I've always wanted to work with him and I kept practicing. Looking back at these inking samples, I cringe. So many mistakes. So many line work which I would ink differently if I was inking them today.Later on down the line, I got work for the major publishers inking other pencillers. I kept working, kept inking, and when I see Arthur at conventions, I would sit with him and chat. We would talk about what we're working on, how he saw my work on a certain comic and how I admired his work on comics he worked on. Then one day, many years later from these inking samples above, Arthur called me up and asked me if I would be interested in inking is pencils on the HULK. I told him, "Hell yeah!"

Below are a couple of pages for the HULK that we've done together. Published stuff! One of the happiest times of my inking career. Sure, it was a lot of details and it took lots of hours to finishing inking. Long hours where I was able to finish inking one page a day. Still, I didn't complain. I enjoyed ever tiny detail about it. Going to his house to pick up art, meeting up at restaurants to talk comics, me picking his brains so I can get to the point where I can ink him like he inks himself. In fact, by the time we were finishing up the last batch of pages on the Hulk, Arthur gave me the best compliment ever. After looking over the my inks over his pencils, he said to me, "I can't tell if you inked it or if I inked it." I was in heaven.And that's my story with Arthur Adams. How I know him, how I wanted to work with him, and how I got to work with him professionally. It feels full circle that i got to ink over Arthur's work. Especially since he was there in the beginning to guide me along the way. If given the chance to work with him again, I'll be all over it.